I had no friends or relatives in the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon or flights 11, 77, 93 or 175. But I have been affected.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...Which is John Donne's way of saying that the disaster nine years ago was not an attack on America or even on the West. It was an attack on mankind.
Cultural Offering makes and defends the simple and powerful statement that this is a grudge worth holding.
Rudyard Kipling takes a dim view of grudges: "being hated, not give way to hating" is his advice to his son. This is not just virtuous and Christian: it is intensely practical. Enmity and fear are like entropy: they grow naturally. The longer we allow ourselves to hate our neighbour, the dearer the final reckoning.
So somewhere we must find the strength to take our lumps and carry on building a better world as best we can.
While we celebrate the lives of the victims and grieve that they were cut short.
There are some grudges worth holding. Some acts so heinous that they deserve sustained condemnation. I too take a general dim view toward grudges. They should however be held in reserve for such as events as those that were carried out on 9/11.
ReplyDeleteKurt
Kurt,
ReplyDeleteI don't see us ever agreeing on this.
If we demonise them, we are paying them the compliment of copying the way they must have thought of us.
And who, exactly, are we holding our grudge against anyway?
The people who actually committed the outrage? They are now, according to the Kadiths, doomed to repeat it for eternity in their own personal hells.
The Government of Saudi Arabia that fostered Al'Quaeda by its own corruption and lack of care for its own people?
The Western governments who supported generations of injustice throughout the Middle East?
Or just the team that planned this particular atrocity? That seems inadequate to the horror.
More importantly, if we bear a grudge we are obliged to act, or we become like the drunkard's wife in Tam o'Shanter: sulking at home and nursing our wrath to keep it warm. What action can we possibly take that does not add further injustice and make things worse for everyone?
I simply do not buy the Jack Bauer argument that the ends justify the means. If we accept injustice as a means for now, we accept it for ever.
The best response is to answer the great and challenging question put on camera by a weeping woman on the day: "Why do they hate us so?". And fix that.
You might be interested in Sebastian Faulks' A Week in December, where he tries to get inside the heads of the two great villains of our time: the hedge fund manager and the fundamentalist bomber.
Your question, I fear, will result in much navel gazing. Will we fix it with Sharia Law? Sorry. They hate use because of who we are. It is simple and brutal and tribal. And they only understand that.
ReplyDeleteYou might enjoy Lee Harris's The Suicide of Reason.